Feliciano Montoya
Feliciano started playing guitar at 10 years old, and got very serious about it in high school. He joined the Waltrip High School jazz band and was placed in the top ensemble right away. However, the Waltrip band required that all band students also be in the marching and concert bands if they wanted to be in the jazz band, so that is where Feliciano began playing percussion.
Throughout his high school years, he mainly focused on guitar, but was still interested in percussion and music in general. By the time senior year had come around, Feliciano had played many different instruments in many of the various ensembles available at Waltrip. The most notable instruments were guitar, bass, percussion, piano, bassoon, and tenor saxophone. Also during senior year, he had to make a choice as to what his college major would be. After some thought, he knew that he wanted to do music, but then came the decision of which instrument to major in. The obvious choice, to many people, was guitar, but Feliciano ended up choosing percussion instead, because he was already proficient enough at the guitar to accomplish his goals. Feliciano chose Blinn College in Brenham, TX as his desired school, but unfortunately, he waited too long to audition for percussion and had to audition on bassoon instead.
Feliciano spent one semester as a bassoon major at Blinn while also playing tenor saxophone in the marching band. However, along with bassoon lessons, he enrolled in non-major percussion lessons, and set up an audition for the percussion studio at the end of the semester. Not only did he make it in to the percussion studio, but was also placed in the top ensemble at Blinn on percussion. Throughout the rest of his time at Blinn, Feliciano made the All-State band 3 times as a percussionist, made the Dean’s List 3 times, was a presidential scholar twice, and graduated with honors. During this time, Feliciano also taught weekly at Waltrip High School. Once he graduated from Blinn with an Associate’s degree in music, he was set to teach music, but is now pursuing a Bachelor’s in Computer Engineering for a career.
Currently, aside from going to school, Feliciano is the percussion instructor for Waltrip High School, and is a member of a few bands with friends. He is also a sound recording enthusiast and spends a lot of time recording his friends’ music, as well as his own. Feliciano enjoys listening to and playing music of all bands and genres, making it hard to not to enjoy himself in any musical setting.
